I can’t tell you how much of a breath of fresh air it is after ditching Reddit for Lemmy. In my several days of being here, I have only seen ONE asshole! Versus seeing multiple assholes on Reddit! Crazy right?
But seriously, I used Reddit since 2014. I tried using it for therapeutic conversations sometimes. Like going on r/Offmychest or r/Confessions. As I’ve dealt with a lot of trauma in my own life, done some bad things I’m not proud of and needed to get them out…over on Reddit, I was constantly judged. Even if I showed fucking remorse over my actions and made it clear I’m not proud of what I did, 10 years ago for example. And I’d get called a dipshit and an asshole and I need therapy. (Not that I can afford it) It was never genuine, heart to heart conversation. Now after being here on Lemmy and seeing how many kind and amazing people there are, it’s actually starting to encourage me to try again. Maybe I can actually have one on one honest conversations without being called a horrible person despite me showing remorse. That being said, if anyone could point me in the right direction to an offmychest or Confessions community, or instance, I’d appreciate it.
I guess bottom line, you guys are great. The majority at least. It’s such a breath of fresh air from the toxicity and ridicule of Reddit and I greatly appreciate it. Thanks guys, and keep…Lemmying?
(That’s totally a word!)
It was beehaw that did it. Not .world . Beehaw was the second largest instance before the reddit exodus. Second only to the devs’ instance lemmy.ml which beehaw users missed no chance in telling you it’s run by tankies!
I just don’t see why any instance with a strong philosophy would think they can exist as the largest instance long term. I’m sure with time places like Lemmy.world that have a broad appeal will become the largest. The only question for instances like Beehaw is do they want to A) have all of their major discussion happen in communites run in other instances? B) Have the major Lemmyverse discussion that most alligns with Beehaw’s core values and message happen on Beehaw where they are able to steer it? or C) be a little insulated bubble that doesn’t really participate directly in the wider Lemmyverse discussion even on topics that matter to them?
Any of the three are fine choices (I think the best version of the Lemmyverse is option B) personally) but they are a choice they need to be clear on.
What I’d seen of Beehaw’s own content about what they are, why they exist and what they are trying to do largely suggested they’d be entirely compatible with Lemmy.world so I presumed I was doing something wrong when I couldn’t connect to them from here. If they really just decided to exclude us because we’re growing larger that seems like a mistake. “We don’t talk to large communities” isn’t really a good core value for a community to grow with.
I wonder if the issue is that Beehaw (I’m told) is careful about who they allow to join and so people who wish to cause trouble there are joining other Lemmy instances, not to participate in those other instances but as a backdoor to using Beehaw disruptively. If that is the case, then Beehaw needs to find a more elegant solution or they will have to block contact with any external instance eventually. (Not to mention it is a great shame to block content with a community based on the actions of disruptive people who aren’t actually part of that community.)
Edit: having found their announcement post about this (and digging deep into the discussion) it seems clear that the core of what the team at Beehaw actually think is that the current moderation tools within Lemmy are insufficient to allow them to have open federation with open-signup instances and that once those tools exist (which imo is inevitable) they are keen to try to reoopen federation with instances like Lemmy.world that they don’t have any other issue with. They just… Don’t seem to have that as a very clearly focused notion that they’ve effectively communicated. Which is understandable, everyone running these things is a volunteer learning as they go.